I think I’ve found my perfect songwriter – maybe just in time, or maybe a few years too late.
As many on this site know, my favourite songwriters tend to be the Texas Singer-Songwriters, of which Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle are the most well-known proponents – but there are many more. For me, there’s a wonderful lyricism and story-telling to the songs that these fellows write. In many cases the words are more important than the melodies.
Enter Eric Taylor.
How I’ve missed him all these years is anyone’s guess. But Eric, a native of Georgia if I remember rightly, eventually found his way to Texas where he sat at Guy Clark’s kitchen table on many a morning, drinking coffee and gin for breakfast, and writing songs with Guy, and Townes van Zandt, and Steve Earle. They all learned and developed their craft together.
Eric has had a very colourful life. He was the only white guy in Georgia soul bands way back when such things weren’t done, he was married to Nanci Griffiths, went to acting school in California, was a heroin addict, had a triple bypass, was homeless, played bass for Lightning Hopkins, ran songwriting workshops (in the UK, too – how I wish I knew!!), and much much more. He toured with John Prine – another of my heroes. Nanci Griffiths and Lyle Lovett and others cover his songs.
His writing is even more lyrical than the others I’ve mentioned above, every word counts for something. It’s prose put to music. He includes talking sections and is as good at it as Tom Waits ever was. There’s a theatrical element, if that’s the right phrase. Everything is about the story and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a songwriter that nails what I want from a song better.
A year back, a guitar playing friend who promotes folk gigs and is always trying to get me to attend, emailed me and said he’d finally booked someone I’d like: Eric Taylor. The gig was in a small room in a small village in a remote part of Berkshire. That’ll do me!
So last Saturday off I went.
It was chaotic and terribly sad, it was brilliant, it was heart-rending. But I don't think I'd trade it for any other gig I've ever been to.
I’d been warned that Eric wasn’t well, and that the organisers weren’t sure how the show was going to go. Sure enough, when the lights went down Eric walked on-stage, stick in one hand, arm around the shoulder of his road manager, looking very unsteady and unsure. He sat down and his road manager had to lift his guitar and put on the strap. It took Eric some ten minutes or so to get in tune, a feat interrupted by a few mumbled “I’m sorry”s and a few shaky sips of red wine. But when he started singing his voice was rich and majestic and deep and warm. He paused many a time from playing, mid-song, to deliver a spoken verse. There were tears in his eyes on occasion. The songs were sad. Were the tears part of the show? He did tell us he’d been to acting school. His between-song story telling was fine, if slow, and sometimes he seemed to be searching for the next line. Was he drunk? Ill? Who knew? It was painful, moving, and brilliant. It was like watching a boxer who had returned to the ring once too often and found himself cornered by time itself. Somewhere between brain and body the moves and the knowledge was still there, but they appeared hard to find, and hard to do. Yet the songs were brilliant, the voice, the delivery. There were hints of a world champion of days gone by.
Out of the blue he put his guitar down and announced a break. He was helped off stage as slowly as he had climbed on. I bought a CD. I had a chat to the promotor. A few people chatted to Eric Taylor. A couple of people left.
The second set was more of the same, a lot of slow Texas story-telling, all of it interesting and nuggets of gold to a fan like me of the genre and of the people, and a few (very few) songs. Then it was over. But before then, he’d told us, with tears in his eyes of a phone call he’d taken just before coming on stage, all to do with confirmation of serious health issues. He’d told us that he’d been coming here for 22 years, but feared this would be his last visit. After the gig I wished him good luck, but he told me he and good luck didn’t seem to get along. I told him I hoped he’d find some anyway.
Outside, the calm dusk had turned into a raging storm. Trees were down, roads were flooded. The rain on the motorway was terrifyingly impenetrable. It was as if one part of nature was angry with another part. I listened to the CD I had bought and thought I’d never heard anything better, or at least anything that dovetailed so neatly with what I want from my song-writers. I’ve played it every day since on the commute, both ways.
I’m so pleased to have seen Eric Taylor, but desperately sad that I didn’t hear him at his best. I hope that I’ll get the chance again. But who knows? I’m also thankful that someone pointed him my way. I’m sure there are other songwriters out there that I’m yet to discover that may move me as much. But for now, I’ve some catching up to do.
